We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) HTC Touch in San Francisco using Cingular/AT&T service, and call quality was OK. We could hear a slight background hiss when we talked to friends; not enough to prevent us from having a conversation or interacting with our bank’s voice response system, but enough to be annoying. On the other hand, our callers reported excellent sound with crisp audio and little to no interference. Unfortunately, we didn’t get great results from the speakerphone; voices sounded far away and echoed on both ends of the conversations. We were able to pair the Touch with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset with no problems.

Armed with a 201MHz TI OMAP850 processor and 128MB ROM/64MB RAM, general operation was a tad slow. With about 12MB of free program memory, there was often a few-second delay when opening applications. At first we thought our device just didn’t register our touch commands, but it was really a performance issue. Launching any of the multimedia functions really did a number on the Touch, as the screen sometimes froze midway between the music player and menu screen. This happened on a number of occasions, and got to be quite frustrating. Listening to music through…

The HTC Touch is unlike any other smart phone the company has produced in a number of ways. Obviously, the TouchFlo interface is the biggest story, but the Touch also is the smallest touch screen smart phone that we’ve seen in recent memory. The handset measures a petite 3.9 inches long by 2.8 inches wide by 0.5 inch tall and weighs just 3.98 ounces, fitting nicely in the palm of your hand and easily slipping into a bag or pants pocket. Compare that to the bulky Palm Treo 755p (4 inches by 2.3 inches by 0.8 inch; 5.6 ounces) or Cingular 8525 (4.4 inches by 2.2 inches by 0.8 inch; 6.2 ounces). In addition, the device features a soft-touch finish (a la T-Mobile Dash), to give the device a nice, rubberlike texture that makes the phone easy to grip.

Moving on to the touch screen. First off, the screen itself measures 2.8 inches diagonally and displays 65,536 colors at a 240×320 pixel resolution. That’s all pretty standard, but what sets the screen apart from other smart phones is the TouchFLO technology behind it. Basically, it allows you to operate certain portions of the smart phone with a series of finger swipes or taps. To…

HTC, the company behind many of today’s most popular Windows Mobile smart phones, is known for offering a broad range of devices. It has done petite, thin, and powerful, and it’s even gone above and beyond traditional smart phones, as we saw at CTIA 2007 with the introduction of the HTC Shift and HTC Advantage. And now, the company has once again pushed the limits of design with its latest project: the HTC Touch.

Under the hood, the Touch isn’t that different from its HTC and Windows Mobile 6 sibling, the T-Mobile Wing. Yet the HTC Touch makes its mark by offering TouchFLO, a brand-new user interface that allows you to operate the smart phone just by swiping your finger on the device’s touch screen. It’s innovative and cool, but it’s also flawed. Our main concern is the lack of a sizable keyboard, which is a huge drawback for messaging fanatics, and it even slows down simple tasks such as entering new contacts.

HTC is hoping to capture a broader consumer audience with the Touch–someone who is thinking of making the leap from a cell phone to a smart phone–and it’s certainly a step in the right direction. It’s fun to use, so we didn’t feel…

The good: The compact HTC Touch features an advanced touch screen that lets you operate the smart phone with your fingertips. The Windows Mobile 6 smart phone also has an updated interface, integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and a 2-megapixel camera.

The bad: The Touch’s tiny onscreen keyboard makes it a pain to enter any text, and the TouchFLO feature doesn’t work in landscape mode. The SIM card and microSD slots are hard to access. Also, speakerphone quality was poor, and the device can be sluggish at times.

The bottom line: The HTC Touch boasts an innovative touch screen and sleek interface, but the lack of a sizable keyboard really limits the usability of this device. And despite the beautiful hardware, the Windows Mobile smart phone lags in performance and needs a bit more tweaking before we’re ready to snatch one up.

HTC, the company behind many of today’s most popular Windows Mobile smart phones, is known for offering a broad range of devices. It has done petite, thin, and powerful, and it’s even gone above and beyond traditional smart phones, as we saw at CTIA 2007 with the introduction of the HTC Shift and HTC Advantage. And now, the company has once again pushed the limits of design with its latest project: the HTC Touch.

Under the hood, the Touch isn’t that different from its HTC and Windows Mobile 6 sibling, the T-Mobile Wing. Yet the HTC Touch makes its mark by offering TouchFLO, a brand-new user interface that allows you to operate the smart phone just by swiping your finger on the device’s touch screen. It’s innovative and cool, but it’s also flawed. Our main concern is the lack of a sizable keyboard, which is a huge drawback for messaging fanatics, and it even slows down simple tasks such as entering new contacts.

HTC is hoping to capture a broader consumer audience with the Touch–someone who is thinking of making the leap from a cell phone to a smart phone–and it’s certainly a step in the right direction. It’s fun to use,…